Nothing says spring fun quite like carrot cake! But if you have food allergies, sometimes carrot cake can be off the menu, especially if it’s a recipe that calls for nuts.

With spring here and Mother’s Day on it’s way, I knew it was a perfect time to make some Gluten Free Carrot Cake Donuts with dairy free cream cheese glaze! These moist baked donuts are top 8 allergy free, so they fit many special diets and just about everyone can enjoy these 🙂

Our carrot cake donuts are not a low sugar or “healthified”, but they are whole grain, have no hydrogenated oils/fats, or artificial colors or flavors, so they are a better choice than store bought donuts.

How to make gluten free carrot cake donuts

This recipe will make slightly more carrot cake batter than will make 6 large donuts, so you can either add the extra batter to each donut well and have slightly larger donuts, or you can use the extra batter to make a few mini muffins or mini donuts.

I like finely shredded carrots in my carrot cake, so I shredded my carrots on a microplane grater. It took about 1 medium/large carrot peeled and shredded to make 1/2 cup of carrot shreds for this recipe.

This recipe would also be awesome put in a muffin pan and made into carrot cake cupcakes! If you decide to try this, fill each muffin pan to 2/3 the way to the top of each muffin well, and check them after 18 minutes. If they need to cook longer, you can add them back to the oven for 2-3 minutes at a time until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Even if you have a non-stick donut pan, make sure that you still mist the bottom of the pan with natural spray oil to help release the donuts from the pan. A natural spray oil without propellants is best since spray oils with propellants can cause gummy and sticky stuff on your pan and it’s very hard to remove.

While I didn’t add ginger to this recipe, you can add ginger if you like to have ginger in your carrot cake! Just start with 1/8 to 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger and add more to taste as you like.

Tip: I use the flat part of an orange peeler tool to help remove donuts and muffins from their pans, it works great!

How to make dairy free cream cheese glaze

For the cream cheese icing/glaze, you can adjust the amount of milk and powdered sugar to make it thicker or thinner. The dairy free cream cheese glaze does thicken up a little bit as it sits, but you can make this more like a frosting if you add a few more Tablespoons of powdered sugar to it.

Tip: if you want to make these donuts smaller for better portion control, make mini donuts or mini muffins!

With the dairy free cream cheese (or any cream cheese), make sure you beat to soften the cream cheese before adding anything else to it. Otherwise your glaze will end up lumpy, so don’t skip that step!

I recommend glazing the donuts when you’re ready to eat them. Since baked donuts are not like fried donuts, they can get a bit soggy with glaze if you glaze them too soon or your glaze is too thin. So put your glaze on right before eating to keep these fresher for longer.

Dairy Free Cream Cheese Glaze:

Instructions

Carrot cake donuts:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees, and lightly spray some oil in a large donut baking pan. Set aside.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the sorghum or brown rice flour, ground flaxseed, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Set aside.

Peel and finely grate your carrot. In a large bowl, mix the rice milk, shredded carrot, brown sugar, oil, and vanilla together until mixed.

Pour the dry mixture into the wet ingredients and stir well. This will look a bit thin at first, allow the batter to rest about 3-5 minutes to thicken a bit, stir again, then pour into the prepared donut pan.

Fill each donut well in the pan to about 1/4-inch from top. You’ll have a little bit of batter leftover from 6 large donuts, so you can pour this extra batter into a mini donut pan or a mini muffin pan.

Bake for 18-20 minutes, or until a cake tester or toothpick inserted in the thickest part of the donut comes out clean. While the donuts are baking you can prepare the dairy free cream cheese glaze (instructions below).

Let the donuts cool in the pan about 15 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool some more. I use the flat part of an orange peeler tool to help remove donuts from the pan, it works great!

Once the donuts are completely cool, top with your cream cheese glaze and serve immediately. TIP: don’t glaze the donuts until you’re ready to serve them.

Cream cheese glaze:

In a medium bowl, beat the cream cheese with a hand beater until softened (make sure you don’t skip this step or the glaze will be lumpy).

Beat in the powdered sugar and vanilla.

Add 1 Tablespoon of rice milk or oat milk at a time to the cream cheese/powdered sugar mixture until it reaches the consistency you want.

Drizzle on top of your Gluten Free Carrot Cake Donuts before serving!

Video

Notes

While I didn’t add ginger to this recipe, you can add ginger if you like to have ginger in your carrot cake! Just start with 1/8 to 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger and add more to taste as you like.